


Finally Free

by Emmeebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3886336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmeebee/pseuds/Emmeebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Lavender leaves for London in search of peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finally Free

It was the war that got her there in the end. She'd always dreamed of living in a big city, but there was always something holding her back. There seemed to be all the reasons under the sun not to go. She was ten years old and her parents didn't want to move; the city was too fast paced and she would get swept up in its currents and smashed against rocks until it broke her; cities were too dangerous for single girls living alone, especially for ones who flirted and drank and did all those things that society liked to pretend they didn't do; it was too big and she would lose herself in the crowd of nameless faces. But the war tipped everything upside down and it was almost as if it just tipped her out into London, if the speed at which she fled was any indication. Hogwarts wasn't the safe haven it had always seemed, and home wasn't the idyllic retreat it had always been. There were too many memories, too many losses, too much pain. London was no longer the scary place it had once seemed to the small town girl who had always dreamed of more.

So she packed her bag one day and just left, knowing that few people would miss her anyway. Most people would assume that Greyback had killed her in that battle, or that she was too embarrassed at her disfigurement and personality changes to show her face in wizarding Britain. Those who knew better… well, they knew better, didn't they? They could contact her if they wanted to make sure she was alive. Owls didn't care about where you lived or whether or not you had an address; any letters would arrive as normal. Besides, her parents knew, and that was all that really mattered.

The city was beautiful. She didn't like the noise and bustle at first, having to fight flashbacks at what seemed like every turn, but eventually the memories became slightly less haunting and slightly more tolerable, and she grew to enjoy the ability to become another nameless face that nobody would remember for long. No one looked at her and saw the gossipy schoolgirl whom everybody merely tolerated, or the infatuated sixteen-year-old wanting a boy whom she didn't realise wanted somebody else, or even the scarred veteran who had seen too much horror in her eighteen years of life. They merely saw a girl with facial injuries they were tactful enough not to question and a wariness that they suspected came from the aftermath of whatever caused them. Anonymity gave her the ability to be whatever and whoever she wanted without being chained down by her past – she could create an amalgam of all of those girls she'd once been, keeping her interest in others' affairs and her hopeless romanticism and her vigilance and bravery while leaving behind the obviousness and her exhibitionist streak and the danger and her gaudiness.

In the end, Parvati and Seamus were the only ones who contacted her; Parvati's first owl arrived almost immediately after Lavender settled in, wishing her well and arranging a time for Parvati to visit, and Seamus' came fluttering in after about a year, once he'd finally sobered up and noticed that her absence wasn't just a brief thing.

But, by that time, it didn't really matter anymore; by that time, Lavender was free.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my lovely brother for beta reading this.


End file.
